The seller opened the door and invited us into her home. The first thing that struck me was that they were major Rat Pack fans, there were prints throughout the hallway of Sammy Davis Jnr, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin throughout the hallway. Hidden behind the prints I caught glimpses of neutral walls and my gaze went down to the floor, netural carpet. 'so far so good' . There was a tall chest of drawers in the hallway ..... 'there is space for a chest of drawers in the hallway!'.
We went into the main living room, it was huge, at least to our frame of reference, I'm sure there are larger living rooms to be had, but it was the biggest living room we'd seen by far, at least, the largest we could afford. It was fairly packed with furniture, and things, lots of music related artwork and still had room to move. Doing a quick mental inventory of our lounge current lounge furniture, I realised to my delight that I'd actually have to buy more things, just to fill it up a bit more (yay!)
Next was the dining room, neutral walls but lots going on with artwork and there was a huge oak dresser against one wall and of course their dining table but immediately I could see that there would be plenty of room for our large dining table which Mum used claim you could only look at it but not sit at it, so tight was the gap between the back of the chairs and the wall. (rolling eyes .... 'mothers!"). There was a wooden floor albeit laminate in the dining room. I'll take laminate anyday over what we had in our rented house. Our Landlord (who was actually a great guy, the best landlord ever), for reasons I'll never fathom out, saw us coming to look around the place, a family with a newborn and a toddler and then saw fit to install light beige carpet. I never thought we'd see our damages deposit back. Did you know Weetabix is the devil's work to get out of carpet? Who knew breakfast cereals could be so menacing? The thought of being able to sweep up the under-dining-table carnage that comes with feeding time in our house and simply mop the remainder was pure joy, I can tell you.
The kitchen was a bit of a let down. It was dated, country pine units .... ('why????), yellow and blue tiles ... ('WHY????') and a blue / grey counter that I sure was all the rage in the 1990's was still loud and proud and daring me to challenge it. The main thing was it wasn't as big as I'd hoped, you can't easily change the size of a room. We were really spoiled in our rented house with a large(ish), newly fitted kitchen. I mentally started to work through these hurdles ... 'paint on the cupboards, tile paint and a replacement counter from Ikea, will freshen it up without costing the earth, its not soooooo bad (oh ... yes it is) .... I can live with a temporary fix ('cos I'm sure not going to live with it like this) until we tear it out and get one we like'.
Back into the dining room and there were doors .... double french doors, flung open (light & airy) onto the decked patio area ... 'I'll have a proper patio area, I can get proper garden table and chairs, there's a corner for the BBQ .... we can entertain outside in the summer'. The garden was lined with trees and shrubs and there was a pond ... and an iron archway that could house the climbing roses I'd always dreamed of having. Immediately I had visions of lazy summer afternoons, relaxing after pottering in the garden in the morning, the children's laughter carried on the breeze, the sound of garden chimes tinkling, a chilled glass of wine in my hand and the smell of sausgages sizzling on the BBQ. Only to be rudely interrupted by the real picture. I'd spend all afternoon schreeching at my daugthter (the youngest is the trouble maker and the oldest is savvy enough to follow her lead because he will have his defence already lined up "Layla started it!!!"). She will be poking in the pond, .... or actually in the pond, or digging up the garden, covered in soil, they'll be whacking the trees and shrubs or insects with sticks, nothing will survive ... which won't all be down to them because my fingers of death will have killed virtually every thriving plant in the place, and we'll realise, as we prepare the BBQ food that we don't have and charcoal, and everywhere will be sold out because everyone in the surrounding area will have already cleaned Tesco and the vicinity out off all things BBQ related, like a swarm of locusts.
The garden in the sun, in full bloom was gorgeous.
One of the best things about the garden was the brick built office building. This turned out to be an office and a library of vinyl for the current owners. Great!!! A home for all the equipment that belong to the Taekwondo Academy my husband set up, and all the paperwork that goes with it. I had visions of housing everything I couldn't find a proper place for down there. My husband had very different ideas.
I wasn't sure about the pond. Neither of us know the first thing about ponds. It seemed to me like it would be a hazard risk for the kids and very stinky in the summer, plus my Dad is honestly, truly, terrified of frogs. We'd never get him in the back garden for those idyllic BBQ's. I can just about cast my mind back far enough to when I was quite small, we had a pond in our garden. My Dad spotted a frog in it. The pond was promptly drained and filled in with cement. I didn't understand the reasons at the time ... pond one day ... gone the next.
The kids were sold on the garden. They of course, eyed up the pond with wicked glee and Layla was quite taked with the selection of decorative stone animals dotted around the garden 'please let them be taken by the owners' (I'd clearly started to come around to the idea of actually living there).
Upstairs there was a huge master bedroom, plenty of room for our super king sized bed.
The smallest bedroom which was at the front of the house was, at the time home to a teenage girl. She had her bed, and a large wardrobe in there, posters and a pin board and all the other ususal acroutements of a teenage girl. The size, for a 3rd bedroom was generous, ok so you couldn't really throw a party in there but there was enough room for Layla to play a little on the floor and I could easily fast forward ten years to imagine her sitting on the bed gossiping heatedly (swooning) about whoever will be the future Justin Beiber or the next Edward Cullen-esque character. I had a vague realisation that if I was imagining Layla and her friends sitting on the bed ten years down the line then I must be warming to this house.
(Sorry, there wasn't a picture of this room on the estate agents website)
The 2nd (huge) bedroom at the back of the house contained a male in his late teens / early twenties (the fact that I couldn't put an age on him is probably a good indication that I'm getting told, so far away was that time of my life that I was completely out of touch with it). Anyway he was revising for his 'last exams' so I'd put my money on them being his university / college last exams rather than A'Level's. He was clearly a huge Rat Pack fan, artwork everywhere, so I stated the obvious as a question "Rat pack fan then??", feeling a bit award about looking around the room whilst he was trying to revise. He told us he loved the music, was in a tribute band as a kind of hobby and gave us a really awesome rendition of Frank Sinatra's Come Fly with Me. Much to Layla's delight there was a cat curled up asleep on the bed which promptly bolted once she sidled up to it.
There was also a door tucked away in the corner of the room which led to a small ensuite with a step-in shower, a toilet and small sink.
The main bathroom was next to it (obviously with a wall in between) that was home a bath, sink and toilet. Like the kitchen, it was a bit dated, lots of country pine but nothing that we couldn't live with until we got around to updating it.
I think, the bathroom and shower room would have been a separate bathroom and toilet but somewhere in the house's history the door to the toilet would have been out onto the landing but had more recently been closed off and made into an ensuite for the second bedroom.
So we trouped back downstairs said our 'thank you for showing is around's and left. We slapped our poker faces back on (which were probably not very poker-like by that point, after being so clearly captivated by the house) when the Estate Agent asked us if we liked it. "It was nice" we said, nonchalantly, and in my best 'couldn't care less' voice " .... but, we've seen a lot of houses today and have a lot to think about" ... we said we'd be in touch tomorrow and parted ways.
We piled back into the car and I immediately turned to my husband and said "What do you think?", I knew he was keen on the idea of an office (a haven / den) and the general size of the rooms, "I like it" he said, "Me too" I said. "I think we should call back in the morning and try and arrange a second viewing, look at it with fresh eyes. It's bound to look good after everything else we've seen today ....... but I really REALLY do like it". "Me too".
I turned back to the kids and said "Which house did you like the best?". And after some consideration "The cat house" they said together. "Shall we buy it?" I said. "YES!" they said. "You know the house doesn't actually come with the cat. It belongs to the people that live there and they will take the cat with them when they move". "Oh" said Lewis, sounding a bit crestfallen .............. and then more hopefully, "Can we get a trampoline then?"
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